Cloud Technology Solutions are excited to announce that they have just begun work with The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. RMIT Univerity is one of the largest education institutions in the the world and ranked in the top 100 universities for engineering and technology.

RMIT chose Cloud Technology Solutions to help move 18,000 accounts over to Google Apps for Education. This is the third release of a major project for the University which is moving all staff and students to Google Apps with as little disruption as possible. RMIT will be using our world renowned CloudMigrator to move staff accounts. Some of our technical support team have flown over to Melbourne this week to kick start this phase. Everyone here at Cloud Technology Solutions are delighted to be working with such a prestigious institution and are looking forward to expanding our customer base further throughout the globe.

Jeff Grossenbacher is the Director of Technology for Fruitport Community Schools. His responsibilities include overseeing the technology department and staff. He is also responsible for technology Professional Development for the teachers and Administration. Fruitport Community Schools recently undertook a large I.T overhaul migrating their legacy Groupwise users over to Google Apps for Education. Jeff was in charge of the whole project from the planning to the execution here he speaks candidly about his experiences with the CloudMigrator.

Using Cloud Technology Solutions for GroupWise to G-Mail Transition. One year ago, Fruitport Community Schools knew the transition from a Novell NetWare environment to a Windows networking environment was inevitable. One of the major issues we were confronted with was “What are we going to do with our e-mail system?” We had been using GroupWise since 1996 and knew we would need to transition to a different e-mail system as a result of the transition to Windows. After much initial research and testing by the technology department, it was decided that Google’s G-Mail was our best solution. Not only did it meet our current district needs, it is designed to take us into the future. It also helped that Google Apps for Education is a free product and in the difficult budget times we are having in Michigan, it also made financial sense.

When that decision was complete, the next logical step was to determine whether or not to move the users existing e-mail, folders, lists, etc. that had been created in GroupWise. After much discussion, we decided that given the amount of time we had been utilizing GroupWise, this was an essential part of the transition and would give our users the best experience possible. The tricky part was to figure out how to accomplish this monumental task. We again did much research trying to determine if it was feasible to move our 415 users manually or if we needed assistance. While it would be possible to move accounts manually, the amount of time and effort required for this task rendered that choice cost prohibitive. We next explored the available software products and tested a few to see which one would best fit our needs. We evaluated three, but determined that the software from Cloud Technology Solutions was the absolute best product on the market. During the testing phase, we found the other programs had issues such as not moving all the mail and not bringing across the folders and converting them to labels. We also found their reporting tools were not very beneficial. When using the Cloud Migrator tool, we were amazed at the ease of the migration process.

We were provided comprehensive reports for each account that included information such as:

• Total number of migrations
• Migration duration
• The number of successful email, calendar, contact and group exports/imports
• The number of failed email, calendar, contact and group exports/imports
• The size of the export and imports

It also went into specifics for each account that was migrated, so we were able to get a big
picture view of the migration as well as a specific view if should there be any issues. To highlight further how well this program works, we were able to migrate 415 people from GroupWise to G-Mail with a 100% success rate. I highly recommend this company and their software to anyone who is contemplating an e-mail migration. It made our transition easy.

Norbulk Shipping is a successful independent ship management company with six offices spread across the globe. Over three decades Norbulk Shipping Group have built up a reputation for providing excellent service and are known to be one of the leading ship management companies. To date they have undertaken full technical management of over 80 vessels. Over the last 5 years the group has supervised the construction and taken delivery of numerous new buildings in Korea and China. With over 3500 seafarers the company has continued to grow and are constantly improving operations at sea.

Last year Norbulk saw an opportunity to revolutionise their operations on land too. With over 100 staff based in their Glasgow office and a further 150 across the world, better communication throughout the company was essential and proving difficult with a legacy Novell GroupWise system. Prior to switching to Google Apps Norbulk were experiencing niggling downtime of servers, occupying a noticeable amount of time and IT resources. Haakon Karlsen, Ship Manager, described this as the ‘tipping point’ and the assurance of more secure and efficient computing with the cloud proved the wise option.

After exploring many avenues Norbulk decided Google Apps for Business would fit best within their company. Acting on Google’s recommendation, Norbulk chose Cloud Technology Solutions to help move their IT systems into the cloud. Cloud Technology Solutions helped plan a strategy for Norbulk Shipping starting with a pilot scheme in the U.K Office. They ran their pilot through various levels of the company for two months. After getting great feedback they rolled out Google Apps for Business throughout the rest of the company. With the use of Cloud Technology Solution’s CloudMigrator, Norbulk Shipping were able to move email, calendars, contacts and appointments from their old mail server to their new cloud based environment.

During and after the migration, our technical support team went to Glasgow to help train the staff with the new software. Stuart Cummings, our deployment specialist, worked one-on-one with a selection of staff, allowing the training to be passed on internally through the company. Our training style at Cloud Technology Solutions has proved successful, working with staff hands on, and showing new users how they can work more efficiently. We bring in real world examples as much as possible, veering away from simply instructing staff how to use it. Haakon Karlsen, Ship Manager, commented on their training with Cloud Technology Solutions

The training with Cloud Technology Solutions was great. The training team were often around during the migration to help users and when they weren’t there they were always available online. The success of the pilot and the training they received meant the staff on the pilot scheme could then go on to do one on one training with new users.

Google Apps for Business was well received by staff. One of the features that Norbulk Shipping greatly benefited from was Google Docs. The collaborative nature of Google Docs allows people to access and work on a document simultaneously at any time. With remote access staff are able to work on the go accessing their data on any device by simply logging in.

Norbulk Shippings’ migration was a great success due to the planning and preparation. Haakon Karlson speaks enthusiastically about moving to the cloud:-

When moving to the cloud you really should research all the services that are out there. Looking at cost comparisons alone there are great savings to be made in a relatively short amount of time. It’s important to look at how it will effect your functionality. Your success depends on how well you do your planning, strategy and implementation. We found an extended pilot including members right up to the top was useful to ensure Google Apps for Business would work throughout the whole company. On the whole the staff reacted positively to the move and now it’s plain sailing!

The Cloud Migrator is the world’s only multi-platform migration tool, that can now migrate data from Lotus Notes/Domino directly into the Google Apps platform, Google Postini Services and Microsoft Office 365/Exchange 2007/2010. The tool has the power to take on whatever needs our ever expanding customer spectrum has. It is written and supported in-house and supports all Notes platforms from 6.02 upwards. This chameleon like approach to development enables us to successfully cater to all customers, from any sector into the cloud.

The Cloud Migrator 2.0 will move all of your emails, calendars, contacts and appointments from your mail server to your new cloud based environment. The Cloud Migrator Tool is enriched with several new features and improvements. The tool can now move unlimited mailboxes simultaneously resulting in a much faster migration. When using the Cloud Migrator from Cloud Technology Solutions, there is no need to install any software on to your server in effect this makes your migration much more secure with no risk of downtime. As well as allowing better delegation of rights. The tool has superior and extensive reporting for both end users and central administrators.

So why are thousands of organisations choosing to move to Cloud based servers ?

• Dramatically lower costs freeing up some of your I.T budget.
• You can access all your data and cloud application, anytime, anywhere.
• The cost of ownership is much lower as you no longer have to own or maintain servers.
• You can work on the move on any device with an internet connection. Whether that’s your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
• You no longer have to worry about software updates, licensing fees or virus protection this is all done for you.
• You can focus your business on your core goals rather than I.T maintenance.
• Reliability: How reliable is your back up plan if your mail server goes down? With Cloud Applications this is all mapped out.

Why are people choosing to move away from Lotus Notes?

• Managing Lotus Notes servers is proving to be an increasingly costly experience.
• Lotus Notes has proved difficult to use in smaller organisations
• Lotus Notes has diminishing engineers and system administrators available in the marketplace to maintain and develop.
• Lotus Notes has become dated and limiting in comparison to other offerings.

2012 looks to be the year people are going to make the move. This is the year companies should be making steps towards the cloud and we can make it it much easier for you. Read 10 Reasons you should choose Cloud Technology Solutions to move to the cloud.

Here are a few reasons you should choose Cloud Technology Solutions to take you to the cloud…

1) We were voted the second fastest growing Cloud Company in Europe according to a TC Survey this year.

2) We have migrated over 200,000 people to the cloud worldwide with our infamous and unique migration tool.

3) We believe that moving to the cloud is just the beginning of the journey. We don’t just take you to the cloud, we help you utilise the cloud once you get there. We have a specialist development team who have worked with many of our customers creating bespoke, cloud based tools to enrich their companies.

4) We have worked with all sizes of companies from 2 employees to over 66,000 employees.

5) We offer global customer support. We believe  there is no issue is too small and have a dedicated team that will answer your query no matter where you are in the world or what time.

6) We have worked hard to become one of a few named Google Premier Partners and work closely with Google to make sure your move to the cloud runs turbulence free!

7) We live and breath the cloud. We are the only current Google Partner that has moved to 100% web functionality. We successfully run our company solely in the cloud.

8 ) We have moved companies from all sectors over to Google Apps. Whether that be hospitality, charities, retail, manufacturing,media or more recently public sector.

9) We are the only company to offer a set price for services required to get you using cloud technologies, GUARANTEED! Overall costs can be as little as £60 per User for everything including all licences and services.

10) We are a chosen pilot Chromebooks partner for Google. To understand what Chromebooks is about click here.

Version 1.8.4.7 is a maintenance release that includes a few enhancements and fixes some bugs that were affecting a minority of users

Changes in 1.8.4.7

Feature: Maintain appointment recurrence when migrating from Exchange 2007/2010/Office 365 to Google Apps, or from Google Apps to Exchange 2007/2010/Office 365 or higher
Feature: Allow all messages to have a user defined label or category applied
Feature: Include proxy information in the PDF reports
Feature: Optionally encrypt passwords in the configuration file (on by default)
Fix: Fixed an issue where inline images would appear as attachments when migrating from PST files
Fix: Fixed a very rare issue that could cause a GroupWise contact migration to fail
Fix: Fixed a problem that could result in an extra calendar being created in Google Apps when a user had been renamed
Fix: Apply domain replacements to event organizers

Version 1.8.4.7 is a maintenance release that includes a few enhancements and fixes some bugs that were affecting a minority of users. The largest change is the inclusion of full recurring appointment support when migrating to Google Apps from Exchange 2007/2010/Office 365 and the same in the other direction. Previously, repeat appointments were split into individual appointments.

All messages can now have single, or multiple labels (or categories) applied. These labels can be used as desired and could be used to label all migration messages with a ‘Migrated’ label or similar. To specify multiple labels for this setting a semi-colon separated list of labels should be specified.

Proxy information is now also included in the generated PDF reports and passwords are now encrypted in the configuration file by default (this can be disabled, but then will require passwords to be re-entered if the configuration has previously been saved with encrypted passwords).

A few low impact bugs have been fixed as outlined above.

Please see the full application documentation for more details of all features.

More Information:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/

Documentation:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator.pdf

Datasheet:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator-Datasheet.pdf

Version 1.8.4.0 of the Cloud Migrator is a major new release and includes support for new platforms, provides many enhancements and fixes several bugs.

Changes in 1.8.4.0

Feature: Platform support for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Office 365 as source platform
Feature: Platform support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 as destination platform
Feature: Improved support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 as source platform
Feature: Improved proxy support for all migration platforms
Feature: Added shared calendar support for Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010 and Office 365
Feature: Improved reporting of SMTP error messages when performing Postini migrations
Feature: Updated documentation regarding the direct use of Google Postini SMTP servers for migrations to Google Postini Services
Feature: Improved the connection tester to better spot invalid versions of GroupWise
Feature: Changed the naming convention for the GroupWise ‘Message Export Method’ option
Feature: Added domain replacement addresses for contact migrations
Feature: GroupWise users without mailboxes are no longer returned in the user list
Feature: Added implementation of new Google API for transferring Email messages
Feature: GroupWise -> Google Apps system address book sync can now be used with ‘Immediate’ migrations
Feature: Retry GroupWise login several times before really failing
Feature: Right click in user list to change migration type from User to Resource or back
Fix: Fixed a problem obtaining the user list on some Scalix systems
Fix: Prevent invalid characters in resource names causing problems with migrations
Fix: Corrupt messages within PST files now do not stop migration
Fix: Fixed a rare UI issue when checking for new versions
Fix: Fixed a very rare issue creating secondary calendars in Google Apps
Fix: Auto-close the application when started and run from the command line

The full change log, including for older versions, can be found at:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/change-log

Release Information

Version 1.8.4.0 of the Cloud Migrator is a major new release that contains new platform support for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Office 365 as a source platform, improved support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 as source platform and support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 as a destination platform. The release includes a range of enhancements and fixes several bugs.

With the addition of Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Office 365 as source migration platforms, the Cloud Migrator now supports an even wider range of migration platforms. The tool now has support for the following source platforms:

• Novell GroupWise 6.5/7/8
• Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003/2007/2010
• Microsoft Office 365
• Google Apps
• Scalix

And support for the following destination platforms:

• Google Apps
• Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010
• Microsoft Office 365
• Google Postini Services

Any combination of source and destination platform is supported. The tool can also be used to backup and restore Google Apps, Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010 and Microsoft Office 365.

Improved proxy support has been added, with full support included for specific non-system proxies, including authenticated proxies.

A new method of migrating Email messages to Google Apps has been implemented in line with the new Google API. This new method migrates messages individually and provides slower throughput, but enables all messages up to 25MB to be migrated. The default method (still available) processes messages in batches and is faster, but in some cases messages under 25MB have to be altered to allow successful transmission to Google Apps due to the encoding required to transfer the messages.

Shared calendar support has been added for migration to Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010 and Office 365. Calendar sharing rights often do not have an exact mapping between two systems, but the tool makes a best effort to match the original sharing settings of the source platform to the destination.

The documentation for the tool has been updated to add information about the use of the Google Postini SMTP servers for migrations to Google Postini Services. Further information has been added about the setup process for Postini migrations which has caused confusion in some cases in the past.

Several other smaller enhancements have been added and some low-impact bugs have been resolved as above.

Please see the full application documentation for more details of all features.

More Information:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/

Documentation:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator.pdf

Datasheet:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator-Datasheet.pdf

Version 1.8.2.2 of the Cloud Migrator is a minor release that brings a few small enhancements and solves two bugs reported in rare cases.

Changes in 1.8.2.2

Feature: Added an option to generate PDF files from the tool menu and optimised PDF generation
Feature: Allow more complete configuration of tool data folder
Feature: Add extra recipients for Postini migrations
Fix: Improved memory usage for PST to Postini migrations
Fix: Fixed a formatting error in the first line of an exported user list

The full change log, including for older versions, can be found at:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/change-log

Release Information

PDF report generation has now been further optimised and there is now also the possibility to generate a PDF manually after a migration has been completed using a tools menu option. A PDF report can also be generated from the last migration even after restarting the tool by using the ‘Load Results’ functionality and then generating the PDF from the menu option.

The tool data folder can now be fully customised. It is recommended to leave this at the default unless there is some specific reason for doing so. Please note that if you change the tool data folder mid-migration you will lose migration history and will ‘orphan’ the old folder.

A specialist option to add extra recipients for Postini ingestions has been added due to customer requirements.

Please see the full application documentation for more details of all features.

More Information:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/

Documentation:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator.pdf

Datasheet:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator-Datasheet.pdf

Version 1.8.2.1 of the Cloud Migrator is a minor release that brings a few small enhancements and improvements and a bug fix for a rare problem with Google to Google migrations.

Changes in 1.8.2.1

Feature: Improved statistics reporting and included percentages in both the tool and reports
Feature: Allow migrations from secondary Google domains
Feature: Allow setting of almost all migration options from the command line
Feature: Optionally allow missing ‘special’ folders for Google->Google migrations
Feature: Optionally auto generate message ID when missing for PST migration
Feature: Added option to perform more detailed tracing of Google connections
Feature: Add license server to connection checks
Fix: Fixed a ‘duplicate key’ error when duplicate mailboxes exist as Inbox for Google -> Google migrations
Fix: Fixed a very rare bug when a failed contact migration from GroupWise could halt a migration

The full change log, including for older versions, can be found at:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/change-log

Release Information

Version 1.8.2.1 of the Cloud Migrator is a minor release that brings a few small enhancements and improvements and a bug fix for a rare problem with Google to Google migrations. The major of these is improved global statistics reporting, both in the tool and in the PDF reports. The statistics now include the percentage success and failure rates for both exporting and importing of messages. This provides an ‘at a glance’ precise picture of how successful a migration has been. Migration from secondary Google domains is now supported, and almost all of the tools settable options are now configurable when running the tool from the command line.

Please see the full application documentation for more details of all features.

More Information:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/

Documentation:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator.pdf

Datasheet:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator-Datasheet.pdf

Version 1.8.2.0 of the Cloud Migrator has just been released. This is a major new release that brings a major enhancement, many improvements and several bug fixes.

Changes in 1.8.2.0

Feature: Support for migration of documents to Google Apps from Email attachments and folders
Feature: Added automatic download and update capability for new versions and improved update dialog
Feature: Automatically update database schema where possible for ‘Staged’ migrations when required
Feature: The default setting for contact migration to Google Apps is now ‘My Contacts’
Feature: Added a pause after the default PowerShell ‘before’ script to allow newly created accounts time to become active
Feature: Better UI configuration validation
Feature: Use IE/system proxy configuration settings throughout
Feature: Added option to cancel migration for individual users
Feature: Adding some missing configuration options into the PDF reports
Fix: Enable Google -> Google migrations for all languages
Fix: Fixed an issue where the setting to change password on first logon was not being applied
Fix: Fixed a rare problem obtaining the master category list from Office 365 which caused migrations to fail
Fix: Improved the Google connection test to detect when admin accounts have not been ‘activated’
Fix: Fixed a Scalix issue where the folder hierachy was not preserved if the inbox contained nested folders
Fix: Fixed a Scalix issue where contact sub-folders were not migrated
Fix: Fixed a minor UI bug where the user count was not immediately updated after getting a new user list

The full change log, including for older versions, can be found at:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/change-log

Release Information

Migration of email attachments and file system folders to Google Documents is now supported. This means that attachments to emails (according to a configurable filter) can be migrated into Google Documents. If migrating from Email attachments, links to the migrated documents can be inserted into the Emails so users always have direct access to the migrated documents. Documents can also be migrated from folders on the file system (local or remote) into Google Documents. Collections are created to organise migrated documents in a logical and configurable way.

The automatic update notification dialog has been significantly improved, with the release notes for the newly found update being displayed. It is also now possible to download the new release and start the installation directly from within the tool. When an update is released, the new dialog will be displayed and users can update immediately and quickly.

If performing staged migrations the database schema is now updated automatically, with no need to remove and recreate the database.

During a migration it is now possible to right click on the progress tab and cancel migrations for individual users.

Several other minor enhancements have been implemented and several bugs, as described above, have also been fixed.

Please see the full application documentation for more details of all features.

More Information:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/resources/migration-tool/

Documentation:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator.pdf

Datasheet:

http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/files/public/Cloud-Migrator-Datasheet.pdf